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Separating gifted children hasn't led to better achievement

hechingerreport.org

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Re: Separating gifted children hasn't led to better achievement

#311

Post by swish_bob »

toasterlovin wrote: post #74
cortesoft wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, so it raises the question: What is the relative importance of helping the best students verse helping the worst students? Even if we solve the talent identification problem, SOME kids are going to be the lower achievers.... are we willing to sacrifice helping them do better to help the top achievers do their best? How much are we willing to sacrifice in either direction?

> are we willing to sacrifice helping them do better to help the top achievers do their best It's not clear to me that separating more talented kids into their own groups and classes hurts less talented kids. What is your thinking here?

Numerous studies appear to show this.

Re: Separating gifted children hasn't led to better achievement

#312

Post by hcurtiss »

thatfrenchguy wrote: post #143
borski wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amen to this. I was separated (went to Stuyvesant HS in NYC) and it made a world of difference for me, as compared to JHS or elementary school. Prior to Stuy, I was bullied like crazy, beaten, and it was very difficult to try and fit in with many of the others around me who, frankly, just didn't give a fuck . It really sucked. Stuy was a different world, and the first time in my life I felt the opportunity to actuall…

> Prior to Stuy, I was bullied like crazy, beaten, and it was very difficult to try and fit in with many of the others around me who, frankly, just didn't give a fuck. It really sucked Can't we fix bullying in the first place ?

I think we have several millennia of proof we cannot.

Re: Separating gifted children hasn't led to better achievement

#313

Post by Nasrudith »

zebraflask wrote: post #211
hackerrenews wrote: post #9

I was fourth picked for g&t. First and second pick ended up being quite successful, as did the third picked. One has a high up, prestigious position at Amazon and the other retired from Microsoft wealthy. Me, I smoke weed and that’s about the only thing I’ve really done consistently since high school.. more consistently than music, and programming, even. Frankly, I wish I had been better separated from the other kids…

I think the tenor of what you're trying to express is that smart kids shouldn't be abused for being smart. Not a controversial opinion. Making them unnecessarily cut off from everyone else who isn't quite as "gifted" is worse, in a way. How is that kid going to get out of his/her bubble?

The thing about "bubbles" is they are inherently normist based on population or status with nothing backing their actual validity. They are recipocial no matter how fucked up the objective differences are. "Man what kind of fucked up bubble are you in if you think burrying or burning your grandma instead of eating her is normal?".

To be frank we already let social norms over reason lead us into enough nightmares and stupid decisions - we shouldn't be encouraging them.

Re: Separating gifted children hasn't led to better achievement

#314

Post by swish_bob »

wott wrote: post #105
empath75 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they’d do better by taking the kids who understand the material and asking them to work with the kids who don’t. You learn as much by teaching as doing, if not more.

It is very difficult to explain something which was obvious to you. Often you would not know how to decompose it, and above all, you would not know the pain points the others encounter, and why those points are painful. Teaching is a trade, after all.

This is explicitly why I did so well at Maths at A-Level. Once I could explain something to my less gifted peers, I had it. Completely and without the need to do the endless repetition I found so boring that is otherwise normally used to get good at solving those types of problems.

Re: Separating gifted children hasn't led to better achievement

#315

Post by Nasrudith »

whaaswijk wrote: post #288
zebby wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is obvious, niggers.

Unfortunately I don't have enough karma to flag your comment. This kind of low-effort trolling adds absolutely nothing IMO.

I don't think it is karma but a user interface thing - you need to click to zoom in. Unclear but my guess is to try to discourage rage-flagging instead of downvoting.

Re: Separating gifted children hasn't led to better achievement

#316

Post by kareninoverseas »

Hm. I didn't get identified as gifted until eighth grade and I don't think about it very hard these days. I still struggled to make friends after I was placed in a gifted program, and in hindsight wasn't being challenged in my courses. In college I envied students that went to more rigorous schools, partly because I struggled a lot more with my coursework. I think being labelled as gifted wasn't a very good thing for me, and that I should have been encouraged to pursue my interests more instead.

Re: Separating gifted children hasn't led to better achievement

#318

Post by distances »

scarface74 wrote: post #286
Kaiyou wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost like intelligence is inheritable. Fascinating.

Let me tell you a little story. My step son didn’t make the cut off for the ACT to get into the college he wanted. Ten weeks and a $1000 later after paying for ten sessions with a college professor for a test prep course, he raised is score high enough to get in. Did he get “more intelligent” during those ten weeks? When I left my private elementary school in the south and my mom who was teacher didn’t want me to go…

Do you think admission strictly based on university entrance exams, like most of the world seems to do, would be preferable also in the US?

Edit: got carried away, this want a discussion about universities and not thus really applicable. Still interested though.

Re: Separating gifted children hasn't led to better achievement

#319

Post by Merrill »

yters wrote: post #192
eloff wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But would bring other problems. The cure is likely worse than the disease.

Most of history? I'd argue three Rs is the basics everyone needs, and then they can find their own way.

Reading and writing are unnecessary for much of the population given the progress in speech to text and text to speech algorithms. We can go straight to learning how to express ideas in speech and learning how to locate, access and understand information.

And calculators have rendered arithmetic unnecessary for some time. The focus should be on how to use calculation for financial and technical purposes.

Re: Separating gifted children hasn't led to better achievement

#320

Post by wongarsu »

LaLaLand122 wrote: post #275
dcbadacd wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have exactly the same experience as the previous commenters, I was also basically rescued into a (learning-)conducive environment and I'm seriously thankful for that. The alternative would've very likely been awful because I've seen on a good friend of mine what happens when there isn't an opportunity to get into a "magnet school". It basically caused clinical depression and such a strong distaste for school that i…

Having been educated in probably a different country, with a different school system, I am surprised to read all these comments. Not saying my country school system is perfect, it isn't. And there are cases of abuse, bullying does exist. But 30 years ago I was the good, shy, student in a poor neighbourhood of a big city and never suffered or witnessed anything too bad (and from 4 to 12 year old we had a kid with Down…

In Germany we split children into three kinds of school at around age 10-11. There is decent mobility between the schools if you over- or under-perform, and little to no splitting within the same school (well, until age 16/17). It's generally a positive experience for everyone, with everyone getting the right teachers and the right mix of practical and theoretical work/learning.
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